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8 - Power and Versatility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Paul Weirich
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Columbia
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Summary

Multidimensional utility analysis is a versatile tool for decision making. It creates a decision space with room for many varieties of utility analysis. A decision maker may employ whichever analysis best suits the problem she faces.

My version of multidimensional utility analysis accommodates various traditional forms of utility analysis and ensures their consistent conjoint application. Its cornerstone is intrinsic utility analysis. My new formulation of it establishes its credentials and guides the formulation of other methods of utility analysis. It refines those methods of utility analysis to make them more accurately handle considerations such as aversion to risk.

Multidimensional utility analysis requires a decision space in which to locate and separate reasons for options. Given the idealizations about agents and their decision problems, the finest-grained reason is a chance for realization of a person's basic intrinsic attitude. Such reasons occupy the points of my decision space. When agglomerated various ways, they yield an option's utility. The forms of agglomeration furnish my methods of utility analysis. Intrinsic, expected, and group utility analyses fully survey reasons for options.

The decision space I adopt not only makes precise and unifies traditional forms of utility analysis, but also suggests new forms of utility analysis such as partial utility analysis. The new forms of analysis present new ways of organizing the reasons behind traditional utility analyses. They make multidimensional utility analysis even more versatile.

Type
Chapter
Information
Decision Space
Multidimensional Utility Analysis
, pp. 241 - 243
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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  • Power and Versatility
  • Paul Weirich, University of Missouri, Columbia
  • Book: Decision Space
  • Online publication: 28 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498602.009
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  • Power and Versatility
  • Paul Weirich, University of Missouri, Columbia
  • Book: Decision Space
  • Online publication: 28 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498602.009
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Power and Versatility
  • Paul Weirich, University of Missouri, Columbia
  • Book: Decision Space
  • Online publication: 28 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498602.009
Available formats
×